SIRRL has announced that it has purchased farmland in Glenavy/Waimate for the proposed Project Kea waste incinerator, claiming it as the “perfect location.” But is it? Hundreds of kilometres from the waste source, population base, and infrastructure to support it, why choose productive farmland within a food-producing region in a flood zone to site a vast rubbish incinerator? SIRRL’s resource

” NZ is in the middle of a landfill crisis; many of the South Island’s landfills are older, over-packed and failing.” – Paul Taylor, SIRRL director. SIRRL continually uses historic landfills that predate the RMA, like the Fox River tip, to compare against Project Kea. Modern landfills are heavily regulated and engineered to avoid events such as Fox River. A

SIRRL’s second resource consent application was returned due to “insufficient information”, in particular, a lack of a Cultural Impact assessment (CIA). SIRRL lodged an appeal, which an independently appointed commissioner heard. Barrister Rob Enright, “by a narrow margin”, found in favour of SIRRL and directed the two councils to accept the resource consent application as complete. This means that the